Three Anthologies

According to the Oxford Dictionary, the word ‘Anthology’  originates from the Greek anthos meaning flower. Logia means a collection. Anthology literarily means a collection of flowers.

I love a good anthology, and so I’m pleased to have work in three new and recently published anthologies.-

 

Yesterday ‘Diversifly; Poetry and Art on Britain’s Urban birds’ arrived. Edited by Nadia Kingsley and published by Fair Acre press, it is full of striking illustrations to accompany poems covering everything from Barn owl to Wren. Some of my favourite artwork in the book is by  Deborah Vas.

Peregrine, by Deborah Vas

You can find prints and cards of Deborah’s  work here.    

I have two poems in the book.  Here is ‘Heron’, from ‘The Great Animator’, with illustration by Gordon Yapp.

‘The Language of Flowers’ is a hardback published by Penguin as part of their ‘Everyman’ series presenting poetry from ancient Greece to contemporary Britain and America, and spanning the world from Cuba to Korea, Russia to Zimbabwe. I was surprised to see my name in the book alongside Rumi, Rossetti and Rilke, Clare and Chaucer, Hughes and Heaney as well as work by contemporary poets like Alice Oswald and Louise Gluck. The surprise arose from the fact that I had not received any indication that my little poem ‘Dandytime’ from ‘The Sun Bathers’ would be included. My publisher John Lucas duly made the necessary enquiries and the overlooked permission has been granted by us and a small payment is forthcoming from Penguin, so everything is ok!

Finally, the substantial anthology ‘One for the Road’ is available from ‘The Poetry Business’   . I have two poems included beside work from some of the UK’s best contemporary poets.
One of my favourite poems in this book is ‘A drink at the door’ by Zaffar Kunial. I remember first reading the poem in his Faber New poets pamphlet a couple of years ago, and am very much looking forward to Zaffar’s first full collection from Faber, to be published sometime this year.